JOE McNALLY: FACES OF GROUND ZERO

Louie Cacchioli

Firefighter, Engine 47, FDNY

Rescued many from Tower No. 1

"I stepped outside after bringing about 40 or 50 people down a stairway. I looked around. It was crazy. Somebody yelled, 'Look out! The tower's coming down!' I started running. I tossed my air mask away to make myself lighter. Next thing I know, there's a big black ball of smoke. I threw myself on my knees, and I'm crying. I said to myself, 'Oh, my God, I'm going to die.' I was crawling. Then—the biggest miracle thing in the world. My hands came onto an air mask. It still had air. Another 15 seconds, I wouldn't have made it."

Joe McNally created “Faces of Ground Zero, Portraits of the Heroes of September 11, 2001” during the first devastating weeks after September 11, 2001.  Joe McNally set up his portrait studio at MOBY C in lower Manhattan. This unique large-format camera is a room sized camera, with a U2 spy plane lens that produces a 9 foot print. The collection of over 200 photographs was exhibited at 7 venues throughout 2002; followed by a special appearence in the exhibition "Icons" at Monroe Gallery of Photography.

The Faces of Ground Zero/Giant Polaroid Collection is perhaps the most significant artistic response to and documentation of the tragedy at the World Trade Center. The traveling exhibition tour, which commenced at Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, New York City and traveled on to the Boston Public Library, the Royal Exchange in London, Union Station in Chicago, One Market in San Francisco, the Skirball Center in Los Angeles, and concluded at Rockefeller Center in New York City, was seen by almost a million viewers. The exhibits and the book, printed by LIFE, helped raise approximately $2 million for the 9/11-relief effort.


Widespread exhibition coverage was featured in the United States through the Associated Press, print, major broadcast television, radio and cable stations (and their local affiliates), and on-line media as well as internationally through wire, print, television, radio and on-line media outlets. A comprehensive "behind-the-scene" feature is here.

Joe McNally says he is still flabbergasted by his subjects' trust in him. "They took a leap of faith when they agreed to be photographed. I promised each of them to treat the images with respect."

Jason Cascone
Firefighter, Ladder 9, FDNY

Jason finished his training on September 10, 2001. The next morning his mother woke him up and said there was a fire at the World Trade Center. He remembers being transported to his first assignment with 50 other firefighters. "There was this chaplain on the bus and he was giving absolution to everyone."

Richard, Patrick, and Peter Gleason

Firefighters, FDNY, Engine 47; Battalion 14; and retired

Patrick was working when the alarm came in. His brothers Richard, who was off-duty, and Peter, who was retired, geared up to join the effort. "After retiring I went to law school. A professor there, Kit Chan, had an office on the 79th floor of  Tower 1," said Peter. "After the first plane hit, I called and told him to get out of the building. He called the next day to thank me for saving his life. He did, however, say he was a little confused, since six months earlier over lunch we spoke about what to do in the event of a high-rise fire, which is to stay put while the fire is extinguished".

Melissa van Wijk

Choreographer and Red Cross Volunteer, Disaster Services

Van Wijk worked at aid areas that distributed food and offered showers and beds to workers. "The first day I was there 20 hours, then I took a nap and went back. That's what everybody did. It was chaotic. Everything that didn't fit into someone else's job fell to us."

"The people represented on the pages of this book are, by and large, ordinary people. they go to work, to school, to church. On an average day in New York City (if there is such a thing) you would pass hundreds of people just like there. They live their lives. They do their jobs.

That is what they would tell you of their involvement in the tragedy called 9/11: They did their jobs. They did what they were supposed to do - as human beings, as citizens, as New Yorkers." -- Joe McNally

Related: Joe McNally's Blog - "The Foley Family"

Related: Happy Birthday Joe McNally

BILL EPPRIDGE EXHIBIT FEATURES THE HISTORIC MASTER VINTAGE PRINT OF ROBERT KENNEDY SHOT

©Bill Eppridge

"Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure" features the historic master vintage print of Busboy Juan Romero trying to comfort Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy after assassination attempt, June 5, 1968. Taken by photographer Bill Eppridge, it is the original master print used to reproduce this iconic image in the LIFE magazine issue dated June 14, 1968. Eppridge's photograph of Robert F. Kennedy running on the beach in Oregon was on the cover.

On the night of Senator Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles, LIFE was closing that week's issue. Bill Eppridge’s negatives were processed in Los Angeles by J.R. Eyerman, and then flown to the Time Life lab in New York for printing. The printer was Carmine Ercolano, and he made only one master print for reproduction purposes. The negative was very thin, and the face of the busboy had to be airbrushed to bring out his features. The airbrushing is visible on the print, as are the pencil instructions along the bottom in the white border. This master print was later copied on a 4 x 5 camera, in the Time Life lab, and all future reproductions were made using a copy negative.

The master print was given to Bill Eppridge by Doris O'Neill, then the Director of the Time Life Picture Collection, shortly after LIFE magazine ceased weekly publication in 1972. Bill Eppridge was reluctant to display the print in his home in Laurel Canyon, and he placed it behind a sofa. Sometime later, a canyon fire destroyed his home. When Bill returned to the house to retrieve belongings, he found the print had burned around the edges, but had survived the fire.

Writing in Black & White magazine in September, 2008, photography appraiser Lorraine Anne Davis stated:

"An artifact is a human-made object that gives information about the culture of its creator and its users, and reflects their social behaviors. An icon, from the Greek "image", is a representation that is used, particularly in modern culture, as a symbol representing something of greater significance.

"Several 20th-century photographs have attained icon status but few are considered artifacts. One example is Bill Eppridge's damaged photograph of Bobby Kennedy as he lay wounded in a kitchen passageway in Los Angeles.

"But how does one value such an object? What comparables are appropriate? Would it be possible to compare it with the film footage shot by Abraham Zupruder that captured President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in 1963? That film was deposited with the National Archives in 1978 by the family for safekeepimg. In 1992 a Federal law required all records of the assassination be transferred to the National Archives, passing ownership to the government. It acknowledged that the Zapruder family was entitled to reimbursement as owners of private property taken by the government for public use, but establishing the value was difficult. the case eventually went to arbitration, and a three-member panel awarded $16 million to the family, the highest amount ever paid for a historical artifact. One of the panel members disagreed - he thought that $3 - $5 million would have been more realistic, as the family had always controlled the licensing of images from the film. The issue lay with the value of the original film strip as a collectible object. Since there have been no documented sales of any other historically significant original film strips, the dissenting member of the panel felt the value was in the image and not in the film strip itself.

Like the film, the burned photograph belongs in a national museum - however, valuing it will be difficult because the event and the object are so emotionally charged that it will be difficult for any appraiser to remain dispassionate."


"Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure" continues through September 26, 2010.

Watch Bill Eppridge discuss events leading to the night of the assassination in this trailer from the forthcoming documentary "The Eye of The Storm".

Updated: Bill Eppridge Tributes and Obituaries

Related: A Civil Rights Legacy: Neshoba and The Price of Freedom.

Little Rock 9 member Jefferson Thomas dies in Ohio

Grey Villet: The Little Rock Nine enter classroom after escort from Army's 101st Airborne Division.

The Associated Press

September 6, 2010

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Jefferson Thomas, who as a teenager was among nine black students to integrate a Little Rock high school in the nation's first major battle over school segregation, has died. He was 68.

Thomas died Sunday in Ohio of pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from Carlotta Walls LaNier, who also enrolled at Central High School in 1957 and is president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation.

The integration fight was a first real test of the federal government's resolve to enforce a 1954 Supreme Court order outlawing racial segregation in the nation's public schools. After Gov. Orval Faubus sent National Guard troops to block Thomas and eight other students from entering Central High, President Eisenhower ordered in the Army's 101st Airborne Division.

Soldiers stood in the school hallways and escorted each of the nine students as they went from classroom to classroom.

Each of the Little Rock Nine received Congressional Gold Medals shortly after the 40th anniversary of their enrollment. President Clinton presented the medals in 1999 to Thomas, LaNier, Melba Patillo Beals, Minnijean Trickey Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Terrence Roberts and Thelma Mothershed Wair.

In 2008, then President-elect Obama sent Thomas and other members of the Little Rock Nine special invitations to his inauguration as the nation's first black president. During his campaign, he had said the Little Rock Nine's courage in desegregating Central High helped make the opportunities in his life possible.

Thomas played a number of sports and was on the track team at Dunbar Junior High, but others had little to do with him once he entered Central, the state's largest high school.

I had played with some of the white kids from the neighborhood," Thomas said. "I went up to Central High School after school and we played basketball and touch football together. I knew some of the kids.


"Eventually, I ran into them ... and they were not at all happy to see me," Thomas added. "One of them said, 'Well I don't mind playing basketball or football with you or anything. You guys are good at sports. Everybody knows that, but you're just not smart enough to sit next to me in the classroom.'"

Beals said Monday that Thomas was nicknamed "Roadrunner, because he was so fast. You could sometimes avoid danger by running fast."

She said by phone from her home in California that Thomas always seemed to bring a light moment to the crisis.

"He was funny, he had a most extraordinary sense of humor. He did sustain an enormous amount of damage and pain during the Little Rock crisis, but no matter what, he always had something refreshing and funny to say," she said. "It could be the most horrible day and he would say 'Yes, but how are you dressed and are you smiling?'"

Thomas also brought a bit of levity to the 2007 commemoration marking the 50th anniversary of the integration fight — letting the audience know how angry LaNier was with him when he stood up and cheered at a Central High Tigers pep rally.

Thomas thought the white students were carrying the school flag and yelling the school cheer. He said LaNier glared at him and later set him straight: It was the Confederate flag and the students were singing "Dixie."

After graduation, Thomas served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and later became an accounting clerk with the
Department of Defense.


Following the 2008 election, Thomas said in an interview that he supported Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Ohio primary and he also liked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who made a bid for the Republican nomination.

"It would have been a hard decision for me to make if Huckabee was running against Obama," Thomas added.

Still, he said, he was overjoyed with Obama's victory.

"This was really the nonviolent revolution," Thomas said. "We went and cast our ballots and the ballots were counted this time. I'm thinking now we've got to do something. I don't know what. But there are a lot of things Obama ran on, what he's saying he wants to do."



Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

JOHN LOENGARD: THE ROLE OF THE PICTURE EDITOR

We came across a significant tip from Joe McNally's blog about John Loengard’s important guest blog on Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider blog.


"I would suggest as a must read for photographers and picture editors alike. Tremendous economic pressures over time have fractured and adversely affected the historic and important relationship good picture editors have with the photographers they employ. This post, and John’s well reasoned and direct advocacy for the role of the photog in the world of publications, is very well taken."--Joe McNally
 
The Role of the Picture Editor

It is not important if photographs are “good.” It’s important that they are interesting. What makes a photograph interesting? I’ll count the ways: It can be our first look at something. It can be entertaining. It can evoke deep emotions. It can be amusing or thrilling or intriguing. It can be proof of something. It can jog memories or raise questions. It can be beautiful. It can convey authority. Most often, it informs. And, it can surprise.

Nothing is more important than the trust of photographers. Since they are not employees, but freelancers, photographers often operate from a disadvantaged position. Remember that:

· You are the photographers’ advocate. No one else will be.

· You are the photographers’ counselor, explaining the magazine to them and them to the magazine.

· You are the final arbiter when disagreements arise with other members of the staff.

Smooth the way for the photographer. Make certain that the proper research has been done before an assignment and that there is actually something to photograph. (It sounds unbelievable to say photographers can arrive to find their subjects don’t exist but it happens.)

You should back photographers’ good ideas with conviction and shield them from misguided suggestions: Often, something that sounds intelligent doesn’t look good in photographs. Intelligent thoughts are often better in the mind’s eye than in the camera.

Other editors, with the story’s text in hand, may judge photographs by what they have read. Don’t join them. The reader sees before he ever reads and may never read if there’s nothing interesting to see.

A good subject for one photographer may not be good for another. Some photographers create a graphic and dramatic structure of a scene and then record it. Others leave a scene alone, intent on catching the ring of truth in a moment’s natural activity. Some do a bit of both. Label the extremes “posed” and “candid.”

You must spot young talent and encourage it, giving these tyros more than occasional assignments. Give those you select enough work to allow them to develop, but remember that when photographers start out, they often imitate one famous photographer or another. Challenge them to be themselves. When a photographer such as Alfred Eisenstaedt or Annie Leibovitz makes his or her reputation in your publication, everyone, including the reader, benefits.

Treat all photographers equally-those with whom you become close friends as well as those with whom you do not. Remember:

· React promptly to pictures you like when photographers call. Don’t wait days or weeks to satisfy their curiosity. Be an audience without flattery. Photographers rarely get informed reactions to their work.

· Don’t assure photographers that their pictures will be printed if they may not be.

· Be clear about what expenses you will pay. Don’t quibble with the photographer’s expense report. Pay promptly. Photographers are usually one-person operations-hardly businesses. They have to pay the airline and rental car bills the next month.

· If you must assign two photographers to do the same subject, make sure the reasons are known to everyone.

· Don’t hold on to a photographer’s work just to keep it from your competition.

Do all this, and when the time comes for you to hold a photographer’s feet to the fire-to urge him to continue to press a difficult subject or try a fresh approach-your mutual trust will be gold.

Since you wouldn’t ask a photographer to shoot pictures by the pound, don’t present their work that way. Take their pictures and narrow them down to the best. It’s your job to show their work so that others can clearly see its quality.

Learn to visualize photographs in scale, and understand art directors’ everlasting concern with fitting photographs, headlines, body type and captions into a page’s space. Appreciate their solutions. Make your points before layouts are made. No one wants to tear up finished work.

When a story is proposed, the picture editor should take a leaf from the newspaper editor’s handbook-the part that cub reporters have to commit to memory and recall when they start out on a story. Who (or what) is interesting to look at? When is it interesting to look at? And where? And how?

To be interesting, a photograph needs to show something distinctive. A two-headed cow is unusual. A bride in her wedding gown standing in a kitchen is a bit odd. But there can also be something special in what otherwise might be a common picture: a child’s yawn, for example, or a man’s gestures or a tree’s shadow. The flawless detail in print from a large-format camera may define the peculiarity of a subject.

“Peculiar” means distinctive, individual (we say “peculiar as the nose on your face”), as well as aberrant, bizarre and absurd. It’s a good word to use when thinking about photographs. Before making an assignment, ask yourself, “What is peculiar about the subject?”

Before I became a picture editor, I assumed that “good photographers” took “good pictures” because they had a special eye. What I found was that good photographers take good pictures because they take great pains to have good subjects in front of their cameras. (Reflect a moment on what cameras do, and this makes sense.) Good photographers anticipate their pictures. What good picture editors do is help them.

Don’t try to tell a photographer how to take a picture, (except, possibly, suggesting some special effect). You want the photographer to follow his own instincts. You should, however, let the photographer climb upon your shoulders for a better view. That is, explain your thinking about the story. Talk about what might happen. Wonder if the man who invented “Post-its” would stick one on his nose. Raise the possibility without demanding to see it. Instead, expect to see something better.

Encourage good photographers to work for themselves, for posterity, for their grandchildren-not just for you. A photograph that solves a magazine’s problem is more interesting when the solution is something you remember after the problem is forgotten.

Text editors do their work after the fact. But because photographers have something in common with Babe Ruth-they either hit the ball or they don’t-almost everything a picture editor does is done before the pictures are taken. What can you do after a home run except smile?

No photographer can go out today and take a photograph that sums up the Obama Administration. Photographs don’t generalize. But a detail, when photographed, often conveys a sense of a whole. A finger, the man. A leaf, the tree. A curbstone, the city.

Photographers don’t like leaving their pictures to chance. When shooting people, they gravitate toward making portraits-strong, static pictures they are certain will command attention-not riskier pictures that catch people doing things. As in a novel, action is always at a premium. And in truth, most subjects are static. Encourage photographers to take chances. Will the 100-year-old lady please bend and touch her toes?

How do you choose a photographer? Personality is not important. (Like barbers, photographers need to get along with almost anyone in order to earn a living.) But the photographer’s way of working is important-and so is the subject’s way of life. You must meld the two to ensure success.

Take the responsibility when assignments fail. (Your job is to see that they don’t.)

View more of Mr. Loengard’s work here.

FIDEL CASTRO IN MILITARY FATIGUES: NOW AND THEN

On Friday, the New York Times Lens Blog ran a photo-essay about Fidel Casto and the significance of his returning to military dress.

"Fidel Castro, the former president of Cuba, wearing his green military cap and clothing like the commandant of old, spoke before the Cuban public on Friday, warning of the threat of nuclear war. Reuters reported that Mr. Castro, 84, made his speech from the same steps of the University of Havana where 60 years ago he stirred fellow students to political action in the beginnings of the revolution that eventually put him in power in 1959. About 10,000 people, mostly students, filled the steps and nearby streets to listen to the man who led Cuba for 49 years before an intestinal illness prompted his resignation as president in 2006"

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaks during a meeting with students at Havana's University September 3, 2010.

Credit: REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

The anti-communist image of Cuba's corrupt strongman Fulgencio Batista kept him in power with Washington's backing until 1958 when Fidel Castro arrived upon the scene to liberate the island as a revolutionary hero. After Castro organized his small insurgency, an inept Cuban army was unable to stop them. After two years of battle in the countryside, the hated dictator Batista fled the capital and Castro and his men headed for Havana. They were cheered by crowds all along the way. LIFE photographer Grey Villet captured Castro's rag tag revolutionary army victory march on their way to Havana.  In Washington's view Castro appeared to bring the communist threat closer to America's shores. But seen through Grey's eyes Castro was a nationalist and revolutionary dreamer.

Grey Villet: Rebel leader Fidel Castro being cheered by a village crowd on his victorious march to Havana

Grey Villet: Fidel Castro pitching baseball while on cross-Cuba Victory tour

Grey Villet: Fidel Castro giving press conference after arriving at outskirts of Havana.

HAPPY LABOR DAY 2010

Carl Mydans: A Pioneer Organizer Of The Office Workers' Union, Wall Street and Broad Street, NYC, 1936 ©Time, Inc

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. Read the history of Labor Day here on the US Department of Labor's website.

Another day of hard labor, Formation of African American men wearing dirty white uniforms and carrying farming tools. This image was photographed for Margaret Bourke-White's groundbreaking photo essay, "You Have Seen Their Faces," about southern farmers during the Depression, which was first published in 1937 and reprinted in 1975 and 1995. ©Time, Inc

Margaret Bourke-White: Women working in defense industry, Gary, IN, 1943

©Time Inc

Carl Mydans: 1937 WPA Progress Strike ©Time Inc

Bill Eppridge: Cesar Chavez, California, 1974

Eddie Adams: Coal Miner, West Virginia, 1969

SEPTEMBER IN SANTA FE

Ernst Haas: White Sands, New Mexico, 1952

It is September first, and the Labor Day weekend looms before us. As the summer slowly fades, September events abound in Santa Fe. Autumn arrives and so does cooler weather, although on some days it may seem like it is still summer.

Following the Labor Day weekend, Its time for the 298th Santa Fe Fiesta. "The streets are filled with joyous shouts of "Viva la Fiesta" September 10 - 12, when the oldest community event in the U.S. takes place. The week-long festivities commemorate the reoccupation of Santa Fe led by Don Diego de Vargas in 1692, a dozen years after the Pueblo Indian Revolt. The city pulls out all the stops for this annual celebration, starting with the Burning of Zozobra, the dramatic torching of a 49-foot tall marionette that groans and grimaces as he goes up in flames and fireworks at Fort Marcy Park, burning everyone's troubles from the past year. His ending marks the beginning of Fiesta, filled with music, dance, food, the beloved Children's Pet Parade, religious ceremonies and more. Blending pageantry with revelry and treasured traditions, Fiesta is a favorite time for visitors and locals alike."

Another favored tradition, this year's 20th Annual Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta takes place September 22 - 26. Devoted to the fruitful pairing of wine and chile, this late September annual fiesta has become a favorite with food and wine connoisseurs across the country. It features more than 110 wineries and nearly 50 Santa Fe chefs participating in seminars, cooking demonstrations, guest chef luncheons, winemaker dinners, and the famous Grand Food and Wine Tasting.

September is also the final opportunity to view the acclaimed exhibition Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure, through September 26. We hope to see you in Santa Fe!

A CIVIL RIGHTS LEGACY: "NESHOBA: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM"

August 1964, earthen dam where bodies of Chaney, Goodman , and Schwerner were found. Federal agents can be seen collecting evidence. Eppridge was not allowed access to the site so he rented a helicopter and flew overhead to get this picture. © Bill Eppridge

In late June of 1964, three civil rights workers in Mississippi went missing, kidnapped by Klu Klux Klansmen. One man was black, the other two white. Their names were James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. They had been in Mississippi as part of Freedom Summer, a voter registration project started by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Congress of Racial Equity to help register black voters in Mississippi. Shortly after this, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sent the FBI and Federal Marshalls to Mississippi to investigate their disappearance.

Their bodies were found in early August, 44 days after they had disappeared, buried 25 feet beneath an earthen dam. All had been brutally murdered. A local informant had been spurred on by a reward of $30,000, and gave the exact location of the bodies to the FBI.

National indignation over the murders helped President Johnson to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act followed a year later, and ended legally mandated segregation in Mississippi and throughout the South.

LIFE magazine sent Bill Eppridge to Neshoba County, Mississippi immediately after the news broke. There are no pictures of the crime - just the brutal aftermath, and the devastating grief and sorrow brought upon one family.

© Bill Eppridge: The Chaney family as they depart for the funeral of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964

Because Mississippi officials refused to prosecute the killers for murder, a state crime, the US Justice Department Department charged eighteen individuals under the 1870 US Force Act with conspiring to deprive the three of their civil rights (by murder). Only seven were convicted, and none served more than six years. Remarkably, on June 21, 2005 -- 41 years to the day after the killings --a jury convicted Edgar Ray Killen, described as the man who planned and then directed the killing of the civil rights workers, on three counts of manslaughter.

© Bill Eppridge: Young White children on the day of James Chaney's Funeral, Neshoba County, Mississippi, August, 1964

A powerful movie, “Neshoba: The Price of Freedom”, opens September 10 in Los Angeles. Writing for Bloomberg News,  Rick Warner reports:

"In 1964, 17-year-old Micki Dickoff asked her father if she could travel from their South Florida home to Mississippi to help register black voters. He said it was too dangerous.


“He grew up in the Mississippi Delta, in the only Jewish family in town,” Dickoff said in a phone interview. “He knew all about discrimination and he was worried about my safety.”

His fear was justified. That summer, three young civil- rights workers -- white New Yorkers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and black Mississippian James Chaney -- were murdered by Ku Klux Klansmen near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Dickoff, now a documentary filmmaker, looks back at the case and how it still reverberates through the county where the murders took place in “Neshoba: The Price of Freedom.” The powerful movie, co-directed by Tony Pagano, is vivid proof of William Faulkner’s adage that “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Although the killers bragged about the murders, state officials refused to prosecute anyone for the crime. Seven men were later convicted on federal charges of violating the victims’ civil rights, but one of the ringleaders, preacher Edgar Ray Killen, avoided prison when a single juror held out against his conviction.

Racist Preacher

The film features new interviews with members of the victims’ families -- including the mothers of Goodman and Chaney and Schwerner’s widow -- and longtime Neshoba residents divided over how to deal with the darkest chapter of their county’s history. Yet Killen, now 85, grabs the spotlight with his unrepentant racist views, his unconvincing denial of any involvement in the murders and his “they had it coming” attitude toward the slain young men.

Killen agreed to talk to the filmmakers even though the state, after four decades of inaction, had finally charged him with the murders that inspired the dramatic movie “Mississippi Burning.” He continued to spout his nonsense on camera until he was convicted of three manslaughter counts on June 21, 2005 -- 41 years to the day after the killings -- and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Almost as disturbing as Killen are the Neshoba residents who criticize the prosecution for reopening old wounds. They seem more concerned about dredging up Mississippi’s racist past than punishing those responsible for three brutal, cold-blooded murders. (Several of the suspected killers will probably never be prosecuted for murder because of weaker evidence.)

But the film, which includes archival news footage, family photos and a soundtrack of 1960s protest songs, does offer hope. Killen will surely die behind bars, the victims’ families have received a small measure of justice and, partly due to the bravery of people like Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, a black man now calls the White House home.

"Neshoba: The Price of Freedom" opens in the Los Angeles area at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills and at the Laemmle Playhouse Pasadena on September 10. (More playdates here.)


"Neshoba: The Price of Freedom is not only timely but urgent." -- The Film Journal International

"How was this allowed to happen? How do we move forward? Some questions, this compelling movie reminds us, still require answers." -- Time Out New York

"The end credits remind us that eight men who were indicted in 1967 by the Feds are still alive and free. Which can't be said of "The Forgotten," those commemorated on a scrolling list naming over 100 civil rights martyrs whose bodies have yet to be recovered." --Slant Magazine

Related: Bill Eppridge Documentary Trailer To Screen.

Exhibit: Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure

HURRICANE KATRINA: FIVE YEARS LATER

Stephen Wilkes: In Katrina's Wake: TV in Sand,  Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

August 29 is the five-year anniversary of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The Sun-Herald ran an editorial in December, 2005, that sums up the singular importance of the event for journalists, and indeed all of us:

"As Aug. 29 recedes into the conscious time of many Americans, the great storm that devastated, fades into a black hole of media obscurity.....So, why does that matter? It matters first as it relates to journalism's obligations to cover human beings whose conditions are as dire as those that exist here." See the full editorial here.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf region, the area is still recovering from the disaster -- a recovery now compounded by the worldwide recession and the effects of the BP oil spill. There are several noteworthy photography-related projects that have covered the destruction and aftermath of Katrina. We have assembled a small selection below for this blog.


The New York Times Lens blog ran the photo-essay, "Dave Anderson in New Orleans". "What can one block tell you about a devastated city? Plenty, says Dave Anderson, 40, a photographer who chronicled the lives of people reclaiming their homes after Hurricane Katrina in the newly published “One Block: A New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilds” (Aperture).

After the disaster, Mr. Anderson, who lives in Arkansas, brought his camera and his humane photographic approach to New Orleans. In such a shattered place, he was initially reluctant to do the kind of portraiture that is his specialty. “I didn’t feel right taking pictures of people,” he said. “It was such a brutal time.”

He decided instead on a project that would take in the place and its people, in details small and large."
See the full essay here.

Stephen Wilkes' project "In Katrina's Wake: Restoring a Sense of Place" reclaims and gives a voice to forgotten places and people. The series of large-format photographs portrays the victims of two devastated Gulf Coast communities: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and the Holy Cross neighborhood of New Orleans Ninth Ward and their struggle to restore their lives, homes and the social fabric of their communities. Selected images from "In Katrina's Wake" has been exhibited at Monroe Gallery and prints are available.

msnbc.com has a great Photoblog, which features "Conversations sparked by Photojournalism". A recent post showed photographs of the Gulf Coast immediately after Katrina, and now, five years later.

The Boston Globe has a great photo blog, and they have just posted Remembering Katrina: Five Years Later.

Photography-collection.com is reporting that Umbrage Editions is publishing the forthcoming book, COMING BACK: New Orleans Resurgent, featuring the imagery captured by Getty Images photographer Mario Tama, with a introduction by Anderson Cooper.

KatrinaDestruction.com has almost 2,500 Hurricane Katrina Photos Images and other Graphics Displays.

http://www.photosfromkatrina.com/ has a specific look at some of Katrina's catastrophic effects on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The New Orleans Museum of Art will present the exhibition UNTITLED (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast 2005): Photographs by Richard Misrach. The photographer Richard Misrach spent three months documenting the devastation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina. Read a related article here.
And a review here.

The Ogden Museum exhibit "Telling Their stories: The Lingering Legacy of Katrina Photography" is an exhibition of photographs taken during the roiling 2005 tragedy that "remain as crisp and clear as the moment they were shot."

Feel free to add other Katrina-related photo stories in the comments section.

Stephen Wilkes: In Katrina's Wake, Brother Charles

BILL EPPRIDGE DOCUMENTARY TRAILER TO SCREEN

Maureen Muldaur's documentary proposal for "The Eye of The Storm" has been accepted into Westdoc, the the “go-to” conference for Documentary and Reality Filmmakers." The conference takes place in Santa Monica, California, September 13 - 15.


The Eye of the Storm tells the story of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy through the eyes of five photojournalists, four of whom were in the room when he was shot. The other was still in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles where Bobby had just finished giving his victory speech for his win in the California Primary for President, a win that would probably take him to the White House.


Only these five photojournalists will tell the story of that night; we will experience an inherently dramatic event as it unfolds moment by moment. These five men will not only tell their personal stories as human beings but they will speak directly of that experience through being a photojournalist. Bobby was a man they had come to love and once he was shot, they had to bury their grief to perform the task at hand and chronicle a national tragedy. They had originally gone to the hotel to document a celebration but they had to use their skills instead to document one of the worst tragedies in American history.

The documentary will end when Bobby’s death was announced at 1:44am the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital.

The five photographers include:

Bill Eppridge of Life Magazine

Boris Yaro of The Los Angeles Times

Ron Bennett of UPI

David Kennerly of UPI

Richard Drew of the Pasadena Star News

Many of their photographs live on as icons of American History.

Muldaur Media filmed Bill Eppridge at the opening of  his exhibition "Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure" at Monroe Gallery of Photography, as well as in a lengthy interview over the July Fourth weekend. The exhibition continues through September 26.